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| Hiking | 8.60 Miles |
320 AEG |
| | Hiking | 8.60 Miles | 3 Hrs 43 Mns | | 2.42 mph |
| 320 ft AEG | 10 Mns Break | 18 LBS Pack | | |
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| partners | | With Friday, Saturday and Sunday being available to us, we sought a Rim hike but wishing to avoid the usual atrocious weekend traffic through Payson, Friday was the obvious choice.
Ok, so what Rim hike? Again combing the archives I found we had hiked 235 Road Trail a full 11 years prior, so why not do a return trip for comparison?
Unfortunately, I have to include a massive spoiler right up front... the 'comparison' will not come from 11 years ago but within 2 years.
AFTER we got home from this hike, realizing more than a few things appeared quite familiar, I took a look at a map overview of ALL the hikes we had done in the vicinity. And guess what? Just two years ago we actually hiked the half the trail North and all of it back South as part of the return leg of our hike North up Willow Springs Canyon from the lake.
So... although I expected to compare the trail condition today with what we encountered in 2014, the huge amount of change actually happened within the last two years, possibly just a year.
What were the changes?
1. It was obvious much of the road had been graded to full-width, whereas previously the last half was barely one vehicle width, and even then the branches of very young pines encroached on the road. The reason for the grading comes as a result of #2 below.
2. There had been a massive amount of clearing in many areas on either side of the road and over a large area, leaving a big mess of shredded trees.
As a result of #1 the initial Northward leg of the hike was pretty much a boring road-walk, and for me, somewhat painful as well... walking for some distance at the same pace with no variation of tread and my hips complain loudly. (Concrete sidewalks? A few hundred feet and it's already a problem)
Although boring, the road walk provided a few bonuses...
A pair of fresh bear prints.
A herd of elk (8-10?) including at least 3 bull elk. Barely caught the tail end as they crossed the road for one slightly blurred photo.
At the north 'end' of the trail we headed West for the obligatory views over Chevelon Canyon, then followed an arc East to the Willow Springs Canyon side, catching a few more glances into Chevelon along the way. From there we began to follow the off-trail return route we used back in 2014, figuring the variety of terrain would go better for the hips.
But not so fast...
As a result of change #2, a LOT of the off-trail route was now a jumbled mass of wood debris... some was shredded throughly, much was not. Some areas of ground were reasonably flat, most was churned up with rocks, boulders, parts of tree trunks and parts of roots left in disarray. The only thing that was somewhat consistent was that anywhere a vehicle (caterpillar, back-hoe, etc.) had followed a somewhat straight line out of the worked areas, a series of 20' long tree trunks were lain across the path, I figured to prevent use by 4x4's/ATV's in the future, even though 'Road Trail' itself is closed to motor vehicles.
While I hoped for easier going off-trail, trying to follow our 2014 route turned out to be a disaster. After a number of failed attempts to stay closer to Chevelon Canyon due to the terrain being so thoroughly chewed-up and spit-out. Eventually I gave up and we returned back to the road and commenced the final road-walk back to the TH.
The best part of the hike was the nice weather... 67-75° F
Now that we've hit this road-walk trail three times, I think that's enough... no more. Unless we return with bikes?? (By the look of the tread, we encountered tracks of someone riding a gravel bike) |
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